Question

Directions Create a two-page paper plus a references page that promotes intercultural sensitivity and positive intercultural relations in the workplace. Compose it as if you would present it for a company at which you work.

In the paper, include information from at least three scholarly sources, and include a graphic of your own creation to support your main points. Think of an aspect of the paper that would benefit from a visual component.

You have the freedom to treat this topic the way you see fit. You could provide information about diversity projections nationwide, or you could provide categories of common cultural insensitivities. You could create a pie graph to show the different ethnicities represented in the company (fictional or actual).

Properly integrated graphics are an important part of professional communication and can enhance a message. Utilize the skills that you’ve learned in INFT123 to support the creation of graphs and integration of graphics and into your paper.

Your paper will:  Provide concrete examples of how to be culturally sensitive in written communication.  Include an original graphic that enhances some aspect of your paper.  Include in-text citations and a separate references page that reference any research sources from which you draw information.

Answer 1

Diversity within the workplace has become the norm due to globalization and unprecedented advancement in technology providing the opportunity for organisations to recruit the best talent from across the globe. It is a major factor for availing competitive advantage providing benefits to various processes. Social responsibility goals of organizations is only one area that benefits from the management of diversity. There are six other areas where effective implementation and management of diversity can create a competitive advantage: (1) cost, (2) resource acquisition, (3) marketing, (4) creativity, (5) problem-solving, (6) organizational flexibility. However the essential features of affirmative action and inclusion are not adequately implemented in many organisations as it requires extensive investment of time and capital along with a focused approach to implement unity with diversity as a part of the organisational environment at every level. It requires adoption of this attitude by the tone at the top with the leadership taking the initiative and ensuring that the impact filters down to the bottom level with inclusion being practiced as an essential behavior which is not to be compromised on by making it part of the culture of the organisation. Many organisations are still struggling with ensuring no discrimination is awarded to women workers and inclusion is another major issue which is definitely being focused on to ensure retention of the best talent globally but may take time to achieve successfully to the extent and in the manner desired to ensure diversity with inclusion becomes a natural part of every organisation. Diversity in the workplace is here to stay and inclusion will definitely find a way to sit beside it to ensure that Global organisation operate with Global citizens and global employees who all have a single identity of belonging to this planet, finally celebrating the individualism and uniqueness of each person.

Every individual is unique and diversity within the workplace consists of understanding comma accepting and valuing the differences between various individuals which result from a difference in race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability or sexual orientation. are the differences which create diverse personalities within individuals result from a difference in education, skill sets, knowledge, experience and expertise. Diversity within the workplace maybe considered as an essential element within the workforce to ensure Innovation and creativity along with availability of a varied skill set and thought process by the younger generation while the older generation consider diversity to be a representation of demographics in a fair and equal manner but may not understand the importance of exploiting the advantages diversity brings to various business processes in optimising output, as they are unaware of the advantages of employing a diverse workforce.

Inclusion consists of affirmative action so as to ensure that the diverse workforce is treated without any discrimination at all by creation of a collaborative and supportive environment which facilitates cooperation and coordination between all individuals equally by ensuring respect for all with equal participation and opportunity being provided to all employees.

Workplace diversity training is essential to ensure that all advantages which an organisation can avail by employing a diverse workforce are adequately realised by training the staff to understand that a diverse workforce brings a unique thought process along with skills that are specific to certain culture resulting in creation of a team with diverse talent and skills along with different mental faculties providing different approaches to a problem or situation resulting and absolutely unique and innovative solutions and crisis Management which is not possible without a diversely talented workforce. To ensure absolute and equal participation of all in a diverse workforce it is essential that the organisation provide adequate workplace diversity training to acquaint all Employees with the various values and cultural features of diverse cultures to promote understanding and generate a comfortable relationship with in groups and teams so as to promote cooperation with acceptance of diversity by embracing and celebrating the differences among themselves rather than resisting and constricting by forming various segmented groups within the organisation resulting in diversity becoming a disadvantage rather than an advantage.

Effective Communication is the foundation which defines the success of every organization, department and team as without effective communication, each individual works in a silo type manner, without forging ahead as one with the extensive benefits of the strength derived from unity. The major part of communication is based on interpersonal skills and is required by every employee in every organization to enhance output. Open communication, whether between the employees and managers or between the management and employees, leads to the formation of better personal and professional relationships. If an organization faces problems, crisis and conflicts due to miscommunication between the employees, it causes unnecessary delays in the daily work even creating crisis or losses. This leads to wastage of resources and lowers the overall work productivity. So an environment of good communication is a must for any organization to better utilize its resources and increase productivity. Communication being the most important constant mode of interaction requires to depict cultural sensitivity by ensuring all forms of communication whether verbal or written display cultural sensitivity. Communicating in a culturally appropriate way means finding a way to communicate effectively that also respects and accepts cultural differences. This ensures inclusiveness with the entire organization feeling part of a single unit rather than divided on basis of culture or class.

Therefore, cultural sensitivity can be understood to be one of the major factors which require to be implemented for improving experience of individuals from diverse cultures, working within an organisation and interacting socially through recognition and appreciation of thoughts perceptions and Impressions of people with different cultural backgrounds, by breaking down of any barriers in the form of assumptions based on prevalent mindset. This essentially encourages individuals and organisations to facilitate diversity within the organisation by embracing it rather than resisting it and recognizing the need for every individual to understand the existing culture, in order to be able to accept and embrace it. For promoting intercultural sensitivity and encouraging interaction the abc model of attitudes training needs to be undertaken for successfully achieving an organizational environment conducive to diversity by adoption of cultural awareness and sensitivity across the entire structure at every level depicting a truly global organization with no affiliation of partiality towards any single culture or people providing equal treatment to every individual within the organization and outside.

Within the abc model attitudes displayed by most individuals can be broadly categorised into three components within the abc model namely, effective, behavioral and cognitive. Attitudes generally moons of expression as well as reactions and evaluations exhibited by individuals towards various events, people, situations for ideas the encounter in daily life. Attitudes are mostly negative or positive but can also be mixed when no definite opinion is present due to lack of experience of a certain factor. Most attitudes exhibit all the three components, not necessarily in the same ratio. Relationship between social behavior attitude measures within interracial situations concerned with economic activities has been extensively undertaken due to advent of globalisation of businesses and extensive employment of individuals from diverse cultures.

The importance of cognitive and affective aspects of attitudes which essentially lead to modification and control of behavior has become important for all individuals operating within global environment. All the three r interrelated as behavioral changes essentially required progression through development of other stages of cognitive phase and effective face to successfully meet challenges of diversity. The cognitive space required identification of cultural Incompetence due to lack of knowledge of the cultural implications rectified by obtaining adequate knowledge of all elements of the culture and its role in defining various behavioral attitudes and the development of an awareness of the culture buy understanding all related cultural implications true recognition of various behaviors. The effective face consists of integration of the acquired knowledge of the culture and resultant awareness with the behavior of the individual resulting in cultural sensitivity and leading to cultural competence through repeated application of such culturally appropriate practices and interventions which subsequently result in cultural proficiency which essentially integrates cultural competence into the culture of the organisation and within all professional behaviors and interactions. Absolute knowledge of all the phases of the cognitive and affective development stages leads to perfect cultural development and behavior. The application of both the technical knowledge as well as explicit knowledge is further strengthened through constant social interaction and application of this knowledge externally within all interactions and click leads to internalization of knowledge resulting in it becoming and acquired behavior and may overwrite much of the existing tacit knowledge which is the cultural knowledge of the birth culture. Outcome is mostly positive increase in knowledge of the culture resulting in greater acceptance and comfort in interaction with them this cultural environment socially and professionally.

References:

Intercultural communication in the workplace and the role of communication in an organization

S.E. Kegeyan
Sochi State University, Sochi

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3.http://www.iorworld.com/intercultural-communication--the-challenge-of-the-multicultural-work-place-pages-240.php
4. Persikova. T.N Intercultural Communication and Corporate Culture: Textbook.
manual for schools / TN Persikov. - Moscow: Logos, 2004. - 224 p
5. Gushina, T. Fundamentals of Intercultural Communication: method. instructions /T. Gushina. - Kostroma: Publishing House of the fire. state. tehnol. University Press, 2015. - 13

Managing Cultural Diversity: Implications for Organizational Competitiveness Author(s): Taylor H. Cox and Stacy Blake Source: The Executive, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Aug., 1991), pp. 45-56

ATTITUDINAL MODELING OF   AFFECT, BEHAVIOR AND COGNITION Semantic Mining of Disaster Text Corpus   HALIMAHTUN M. KHALID, JENTHI K. RADHA Damai Sciences Sdn Bhd, Malaysia   MARTIN G. HELANDER, JESSIE XI YANG    Nanyang Technological University, Singapore